Thursday, October 16, 2014

Happy Birthday to Ruben!

From our weekly Crockett Chronicles - 19 October 2014

Our most interesting day of the week was on Thursday. Sherryl was in the kitchen in the early morning with a cool breeze coming inside to make some cookies to take with us when we went to visit Ruben Sacramento for his 87th birthday. Don’t be too impressed, the cookies were an H.E.B. package mix but turned out really good. Paul went online and found President Monson’s other three General Conference talks and printed them in large type to take to Ruben. Finally we had Ruben’s gifts wrapped and ready to go and about 11 a.m. we walked to Ruben’s house and practiced singing “happy birthday” in Spanish as we walked. He opened the door with a smile. Older people love to have visitors. He was surprised, pleased and embarrassed when we gave him the big box and said it was his birthday gift. He opened it and was again surprised that it was a desk lamp. He said he was going to go get a light bulb and we said to wait and had him open the other two gifts. One was a light bulb and the other was an extension cord so he would have some flexibility where he is plugging it in. So we got the light set up and it is easy to turn off and on so that’s good. He didn't know what to say so he said “gracias” and that was enough.

We weren't finished with our gift giving. We handed him President Monson’s three other talks from this month’s General Conference and he was so happy and we were explaining that one was the “welcome” talk and then his Saturday afternoon talk and his closing talk. We had already printed and given him the priesthood talk on Sunday. That’s about when we both noticed and realized that Paul had printed the talks in English! Arrgh! Now it was our turn to be embarrassed and we laughed and he laughed. Ruben began reading a talk out loud in English and he did a very good job and we congratulated him and he said “but I don’t know what I said!” So we laughed and he said that he wanted to keep the talks in English anyway. We still weren't finished with our gift giving and brought out the cookies and then sang “cumpleaños feliz” for him. We took a photo and hopefully we will remember to attach it. He said his daughter, Alexandria, had made him a special dinner that was in his fridge like his wife used to make. His wife died 20 years ago and we asked if he had taken her name to the temple. He has and he is sealed to her. He said he found the data for his parents and grandparents as well and did the temple work for them too. Ruben was at least 80 years old when he was baptized. He asked if we could read Spanish and we said “si” and he went to get his birth certificate and we read it together using his new desk lamp for a light. He mentioned that the missionaries were coming that evening for a visit. Great! We said we would send Pres. Monson’s talks to him in Spanish with them and we all laughed again. What a great visit with Ruben!